For others, the past is a curse, filled with uneasy compromise and long enduring pain. It is segments of sanity processed in between an alarming amount of anger. It is the scar of abuse, the stain of rejection, or the lingering ache of untimely loss. Funny thing is, the more we try to escape it, the more it seems to hang on, never thinking to loosen its stress-inducing grip. Before long, we become fragmented and cursed, unable to function in the present, yet constantly fighting wars already won and/or lost. Jake O'Connor definitely feels this way. Seventeen years ago, a night of violence cost him his best friend, his family, and his teenage life. Now he's back home to try and settle something - not the score, really, but perhaps something more ethereal inside himself. Then, hopefully, he can erase the past, and treat it like so much Water Under the Bridge.

The DVD:
After 17 years away from his hometown, Jake O'Connor is returning to San Francisco. But there is more to his visit than reconnecting with old friends. Jake has unfinished business with his family. On the night he left, the then 15 year old saw his best friend, an eccentric artist named Marco, gunned down in cold blood - and it was his own father holding the pistol. Sick of running, he is back to confront that event, and the feelings it fostered. He rents a loft from Catherine, a young single mother and gets a job as a bartender. Soon, his buddies start turning up, amazed he's back in town. When not dishing out the drinks, Jake drives by his parents' home. Over the years, his mother has become an alcoholic, and shocking, still lives with his abusive father. As he grows closer to Catherine and her kids, Jake realizes that he has to purge himself of the pain he feels. But it may be hard when all your emotions are bottled up inside, and you're not really willing to share them with anyone...not even yourself.

Water Under the Bridge is a movie about reclaiming your past. It is a film that also wants to repair it as well. It's about forgiving your flaws, as well as the flaws of those around you, and realizing that everyone has reasons for what they do, and that is something you cannot control. Though he obviously wants to shoot for more, co-writer/director Clark Brigham delivers a fine first feature. Certainly some of his ideas are clichéd, and the amazing last act denouement we anticipate ends up being very underwhelming, but somewhere inside the scattered narrative is a nice, nuanced drama. What our filmmaker lacks in situation he makes up for in attempted characterization, and thanks to the interesting company of actors he employs, the individuals we meet here have some resonance.

Make no mistake though, Water Under the Bridge is not about events of earth shattering importance. In a current cinematic stream that forces melodrama out of even the most meaningful attempts at art, Brigham brings a nice amount of restraint to his film. Certainly, his script is guilty of undue build-up. There are hints of criminality, jail time and other hidden happenstance in Jake O'Connor. And for a while, Brigham runs with it. There are several scenes - between Jake and his friends, between Jake and a bar patron - that seem to suggest a hidden level of violence and anger. Scott Cooper, who plays the wayward man, certainly adds to the atmosphere of unease. He plasters on a ready fake smile in the face of danger, as if restraining his inner demons.

Yet Brigham pulls back, making this a simplistic movie about a hurt son returning to reconnect with his family. Trouble is, we don't see the rationale for his return. Jake does care for his mom, but it takes him several weeks before he works up the courage to see her. And he's been gone 17 years (he leaves at 15, supposedly), which means there is a lot of pain, as well as time, preventing the reconnection. But all of this is inferred, never shown. What we need here is context, and Water Under the Bridge is sadly lacking in same. If we knew Jake's passion, his difficult relationship with his father, his burning affection for his mom, we would welcome the return. We would understand the need for closure and hope that our hero receives it. But to simple hint at the 'whys' and 'hows' and never give us a complete picture about anything makes this movie very irritating and trying.

Perhaps the most underdeveloped idea is the relationship that started all the trouble in the first place. As Marco, the madman artist whose spell Jake falls under, Craig Schaeffer is a real meandering mess. He has very little charisma, even less appeal, and we wonder what the young teenager sees in this slovenly loser except a readily available bottle of cheap liquor. Marco is supposed to represent the heart of an artist, the free spirit Jake longs for, but one that his father will not accept. Yet as Schaeffer plays him - and frankly, how Brigham and co-writer Robert Taylor write him - there is too much unspoken enigma here to be realistic. Also, starting the movie off in mid-crime, with Marco already bleeding and brutal, does nothing to sway our feelings for him. If we are supposed to connect to this crackpot, it never happens. As a result, we feel that the event that drove Jake from home was much ado about nothing. Since there is no twist (Jake didn't do it, Marco didn't act unusual) we conclude that the seventeen years away was nothing more than an extended pout.

When viewed through this lens, Water Under the Bridge really falters. Had there been something more to the final act, had we seen a really psychological underpinning to the way Jake is acting, we could appreciate his desire to connect. As such, his two main relationships - one with bar owner Jennifer, the other with landlord Catherine - appear meaningless. Indeed, his rolls in the hay are really nothing more than antics with available woman. His sudden sympathy and love for Catherine in particular is poorly timed, oddly calculated and without a great deal of explanation. One minute, he's just 'a f*ck' to her. The next, they are practically living together. If Jake was really just released from jail, or coming home after a long hidden secret scandal, we would appreciate the interpersonal angle more. It would make Jake more of a human, and less of an expositional device.

Still, when he sticks to the somber, when he's not having his characters lament in long, drawn out speeches that simply take up time, Brigham creates an evocative mood. There are times when this movie is reminiscent of another indie entity, 2001's Urban Jungle. That film centered on a young man returning from prison and trying to acclimate to life on the outside. For nearly 94 minutes it was marvelous - deeply moving and brilliantly realized - only to piss it all away in the final few moments. Brigham doesn't do the same thing here, but he does let his movie get away from him. Though we're never bored, we're never really engaged either. We keep thinking there is some big surprise waiting for us at the end, some reason we have sat through all this navel gazing and self-pity. Unfortunately, there isn't. Brigham brings his character out of his funk with a couple of conversations and a deathbed vigil. That's it, and the result is instant success and security. No repercussion or relapses. Just smooth sailing on a clear psychological sea.

It is such arcane elements that derail Water Under the Bridge, keeping it from really gelling. The performances are uniformly decent, the filmmaking is unforced and not too formal, and the movie has the proper indie street cred look - all underlit rooms and gloomy skies. Still, none of it saves the disappointment that comes once the credits roll. Sometimes, there needs to be more than just a minor mid-life crisis to stir a story. There needs to be context and character, a reason to care and a need to be involved. If you can sit through a narrative and realize, after 90 minutes, you don't care what happens, someone somewhere hasn't done their job. In the case of Water Under the Bridge, Brigham and Taylor are at fault. They have a situation with some minor potential, and they have actors willing to try and make it work. For a while, it functions, but eventually it just stalls.

The Video:
Presented in a 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen image, Water Under the Bridge looks pretty good. There are numerous grain issues, some fuzzy, muddy sequences, and lots of color correction conflicts (pigments look different in the light of the bar than, say, inside Jake's loft). Also, because of the lack of lighting, we get several scenes in near darkness, allowing minor pixelation to appear. While these are all insignificant technical quirks, they still give the picture a low budget feel, something you can tell Brigham was trying very hard to avoid.

The Audio:
There is nothing unusual or special about the Dolby Digital Stereo mix of this movie. Brigham does fall for the outsider scoring that so many low budget films employ when money minimizes the music available to them. Some of the songs here are fine, while others are almost intolerable. The upfront nature of the tunes does drown out some of the more subtle sonic moments, but overall, the aural elements are professional and presentable.

The Extras:
The sole bonus feature, aside from a trailer, is a 10 minute Behind the Scenes EPK that gives each actor a chance to wax poetic about the film. In between, we get glimpses of the shoot and several conversations on nudity (apparently, the crew are obsessed with getting naked for this Making-Of documentary). While the set seems like a happy, genial place, we don't really learn a great deal about what it took to make this film. Instead, it's a lot of handheld hoopla in service of a standard puff piece.

Final Thoughts:
Removing the routine nature of its finale, and tossing aside some of the more oblique moments, Water on the Bridge is barely above average. Had the backstory been fleshed out, had the numerous conversations with friends from the past lead to anything other than filmic local color, we might have had a movie with wonderful depth and emotion. Instead, we are stuck in a swamp of superfluous sentiments, a story that can't convince us of the devastation that its main character ran from. As an icon to a past filled with pain, Marco the artist is anticlimactic - and as a film focusing on his lasting legacy within one hurting adult, Water Under the Bridge is even more turgid. Sometimes, simple is not the best narrative route to take. You constantly run the risk of exposing the weaknesses in your webbing, and when that occurs, there is nothing around to stitch it up with. You are left with your loss, and no way out of it. Jake may have felt this way when his father killed his friend. But 17 year later, the scar tissue would be so dense that no amount of talking could tear through it. Yet Water Under the Bridge doesn't just gape the wound, it cleans it out, dresses it, and removes the remaining disfigurement, all at once. If only everyone's problems with the past were so easily cured.

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